fEATURES

The Bianconeri triumph, the Nerazzurri fall, whilst Napoli are just blaming the man in blackJuventus continued their romp to the Serie A title with a win over visiting Genoa in Turin. The away side pressed hard and made it difficult for long periods of the game, but it was Carlos Tevez who eventually broke the deadlock with a superb finish.Mattia Perin had to leave the field after the break with a damaged shoulder and was replaced by substitute keeper Eugenio Lamanna. The 25-year-old shot-stopper saved a penalty shortly afterwards from the Argentine, making sure it wasn’t all “Carlitos’ Way”.Genoa’s back-up custodian also pulled off the same stunt against Roma, when he saved Adem Ljajic’s spot-kick earlier this season.Tuttosport lead with ‘Scudetto Bombshell’, indicating that Juventus were now clearly on the way to their fourth title in as many years. This is perhaps the complete opposite of a bombshell, as everybody has known this for weeks.The Corriere Dello Sport pointed out that ‘You don’t stop Tevez’, a headline that would have disappointed Lamanna considering he just had.Sampdoria heap more misery on InterSampdoria came out of a closely contested game that saw Roberto Mancini suffer yet another defeat as Inter coach. The match was settled by a delightful free-kick from Brazilian Eder, who has just changed nationality so that he can represent the Azzurri.After the game Mancini was not in the mood to mince his words, stating: “Yesterday we were unlucky, we deserved to win, but that’s football. Do I expect more? I’m not a magician; it takes time to set up a team. We’ve improved, but there’s definitely a lot more to do.”Magic may now be the only answer for Inter and their European hopes, and as Gazzetta Dello Sport cruelly points out today that whilst Eder is no in blue, Inter are very much in the black.Mancini has been beaten by his friend Sinsa Mihajlovic and his team are now an incredible 30 points off Juventus, nine from Europe and are also now behind Milan. Sampdoria however continue with their fight for the Champions League spots, sitting in a lofty fourth.Napoli are furious at the referee and vent through TwitterNapoli were held to a draw by Atalanta and felt aggrieved by the goal scored by Mauricio Pinilla. The arguments continued after the game, with accusations of cheating and poor standards being knocked around with much more ease than they managed with a football.Rafael Benitez was positive Pinilla has committed a foul in the build-up to the goal, describing the incident as shameful and that in some way it was falsifying what the league stood for. The Neapolitans took to Twitter, with their official feed pointing out that this sort of thing wouldn’t happen in England with their referees.The fact that the wrong man had been sent-off in the Manchester City vs West Bromwich Albion game this weekend possibly slipped their notice.Gazzetta Dello Sport backed up Benitez’s point to some extent, claiming that Pinilla did foul Henrique and said that referee Gianpaolo Calvarese was perhaps not good enough for Serie A.Strong words indeed, but also the sentiment of the Corriere Dello Sport who also said that the goal should not have stood, the referee was disastrous and that Napoli are right to be furious. Poor old Mr Calvarese, it seems that as-per-usual on the Peninsula that when a referee has a bad game like this then all the old dispersions come flying back like they have never been away.Calvarese does seem to have one sympathiser in Giuseppe Marotta, who commented that Monday morning shouldn’t be taken up talking about referees, and that they are all prone to making mistakes and everyone should just accept human error.The Juventus general manager going out of his way to lend support to the stricken referee is, I’m sure heart-warming for the rest of Serie A.By Richard Hall @Gentleman_Ultra